Students from West Seattle Christian School said goodbye for the last time to their teachers and classmates last Friday. The K-8 private school is closing because of declining enrollment and hundreds of thousands in budget shortfalls.

"We've been struggling with this decision for most of the school year," said Dan Jacobs, a member of the West Seattle Christian church and School Board. The school board announced the closure in mid-February.

Despite the school board's efforts to attract more students through tuition breaks, enrollment has dropped steadily for the last five years, from 230 students to 130 this year. The school will lose about $140,000 this year due to dropped enrollment, the largest contribution yet to the school's financial woes, said Jacobs.

Projections indicated that enrollment would also drop significantly in the 2006-07 school year, in part, said Jacobs, because many families can no longer afford the $4,000 tuition.

During the last few years, the school board and the West Seattle Christian School Parent Teacher Fellowship tried to recruit students through direct mail campaigns and word of mouth. After the school board announced it would close the school, the fellowship organized a last ditch marketing effort to attract more families. They held community open houses, passed out promotional materials and set up a Web site. But nothing seemed to draw enough students to sustain the school financially, said Jacobs.

The school's principal, Beth Rice, said the closing is simply "a fact of financial life in this day and age."

"But it's sad, because we've always been recognized as a strong academic school," said Rice.

Parent Sherri Hord said the school board didn't notify the parents about the enrollment decline and possible closure until it was too late.

"We were stunned at the announcement that the school would close," said Hord who has already enrolled her two children at Shorewood Christian School.

Jacobs and Rice said the school board adequately communicated enrollment struggles with the fellowship and the parent community for the last few years. It was well known that the school needed to expand its class size from an average of eight students to 15 just to break even, said Jacobs.

To cutback on staff and human resource spending, the school board opted to switch to multi-age classrooms next year, but many parents didn't re-register under the new plan.

"It wasn't what the majority of the parents were looking for," said Rice.

Jacobs said the school's enrollment problems are a symptom of a larger problem in the southwest end of the city.

"Our demographic studies indicate declining enrollment all over the area," he said. "We don't see an end to that. We think this was going to be inevitable."

In the fall, the school plans to begin to refocus efforts towards expanding its popular pre-school program, which started 35 years ago.

More than 20 staff and 50 students will be displaced by the K-8 program closure. Rice said many have already found new jobs and students are successfully enrolling in local private and public schools.

"Maybe it will breathe new life into other private schools," said Jacobs. "We believe in the value of private schools."

Rebekah Schilperoort can be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com